The term has come to be used in reference to the system behind the intelligence community of the United States, where it is most prevalent. Its origin is borrowed from a term in the farewell address of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, warning of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. Unlike the military, there is no tradition of outside civilian control of the Intelligence Community, which has exploded in size and influence since Eisenhower's day.

Contents

Washington Post/CIA nexus

The Washington Post is essentially the propaganda mouthpiece of the US intelligence community through its owner and frontman, Jeff Bezos, who is under CIA contract for cloud service.

In March 2013, the CIA awarded a $600 million contract to Amazon Web Services for a computing cloud system which would allow all 17 agencies of the US intelligence community to coordinate and share information.[2] The General Accounting Office found the deal violated the open bidding process, but a federal court stood by the CIA's decision.

In October of the same year Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com and the 6th richest billionaire on the planet worth $66 billion, purchased the Washington Post with proceeds of the deal.[3] Amazon remains under contract for continuing service of the system.
The Institute for Public Accuracy released a statement condemning the move.[4]

When the main shareholder in one of the very largest corporations in the world benefits from a massive contract with the CIA on the one hand, and that same billionaire owns the Washington Post on the other hand, there are serious problems. The Post is unquestionably the political paper of record in the United States, and how it covers governance sets the agenda for the balance of the news media. Citizens need to know about this conflict of interest in the columns of the Post itself.

Elements within the CIA then began using the Washington Post to promote Hillary Rodham Clinton as their preferred candidate for President in 2016.[5] After the election but before taking office, the CIA in collusion with the White House, the DNC and Clinton campaign, fraudulently claimed Vladimir Putin and Russian intelligence agencies had rigged Donald Trump's election to the presidency. The CIA and its government and media surrogates put out the false claim that Russian intelligence agencies had delivered embarrassing emails from the Democrats and the Clinton campaign to Wikileaks.[6] In fact, the sources of the compromised information came from disgruntled whistleblowers within the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee.[7] DNC insiders delivered information to Wikileaks.[8]

"we are now witnessing is something far beyond Pravda and Baghdad Bob. What we now see is an even more severe distortion of media; an alternate reality created as if the Stasi and Tokyo Rose joined forces to take control of U.S. broadcasts.

If the head of the KGB was an analyst for Russia Today, people would laugh. The New York Times would continue pointing at the example as a reason never to believe the stories. Yet, identically, former CIA Director John Brennan is on TV daily and almost no-one gives it a second thought.

Companymen

Like the US Marines, the CIA, or more simply 'the Company,' have a code to live by. Just as the Marines say, "once a Marine, always a Marine," so to those who have been trained or do operational work for the CIA say, "once a Companyman, always a Companyman." There is no such thing as ex-CIA; as with all intelligence agencies worldwide, the only former intelligence agent is dead or a traitor.

Below is a list available in non-classified open source of media personalities who are also Companymen. Note, there are 16 US intelligence agencies that constitute the US intelligence community, and often a member associated with one agency is mistakenly identified with another. In this sense, the terms CIA agent, asset, analyst, activity, operation etc., can be used as an umbrella catch-all phrase that can mask a person's true association.

Historic examples

The work of a journalist lends itself well to the field of intelligence activity, both in information gathering and mass propagandizing. Below is a list of deceased persons incorporating international journalists who did intelligence work.